Thoughts on Homosexuality in Tunisia

Its Gay Pride month and how shameful to find out that a face book event calling for the first gay pride marsh to take place in Tunis got cancelled (or deleted over massive abuse reports?) and a new event got created instead: “Pour la marche ANTI-“Gay Pride” en TUNISIE” means “For an ANTI-Gay Pride marsh in Tunisia”.

Though it’s not surprising, thousands of people hit the button “attending” and made good use of the event’s wall to publish colorful hate speeches and curses. Many of the comments were so insulting and violent. So many guys affirmed that all gays should be cleansed as they bring shame and danger to the society and wishing if Hitler only existed these days!

Likely, few people also hit the attending button to defend Gay rights and the Gay Pride, most of these are girls. As I went through all the comments I rarely found males speaking positively and if they existed, then they would have fake names and photos. I tracked their profiles which were so private with little information or on the opposite: too much sexual information!

It’s so draining when trying to observe the situation and examine the reasons of this exaggerated phobia; I found most reasons come down to stereotypes. First thing that pops up in these homophobes heads when speaking of gay people is: Gays are so feminine, they are not real men, they put makeup, and they get fucked!

The image gets worse when handled by the local media. Tunisia makes an average of 2 series of 15 episodes each year that get broadcasted during Ramadan. In one of the series where the lead character is psychotherapists that deals in one of the episodes with a super feminine gay patient with all the stereotypes you could think off! I cannot explain in words the awful scenes featuring a gay character as a sick and retarded person.

Every time the subject of homosexuality is brought up in some corner on face book, you’d find people defending it in all wrong reasons (claiming to be experts) and you’d find people trying to prove it’s a disease and it should be treated.

What do you think of homosexuality? How did you know that you’re gay? Please leave your thoughts in the comments below and let’s take it from there.

what realy amazed me tarek is that you speak so openly and you sound so frank , democratic and authentic but at the same time i dunno why my comment is not yet published on this site till now , i have the right to express my own opinion according to my bisexual experience , if you seek different way of treatment toward gay community and a sort of dialogue with the heterosexuals i think you should start accept all the perspectives about homosexuality and let everybody else consult them via this site , and this way when you build your own arguments they would be stronger and more logical.
i posted my comment yesterday night …my name is mahdi
i hope you answer me brother Tarek

Dear Mahdi, I’m sorry I missed your comment. When did you write it? I have settings switched to publish the comments as soon as they’re written. I do not moderate them. Only homophobic and insulting comments get wiped out. I’m concerned your comment got caught in the spams.
Would you mind writing it again. I assure you I have nothing against all letters in LGBT!
Or maybe you can make use of the “contact us” form and I’ll publish your comment later.
Thanks!